The present invention relates to an integrated control-unit and power-supply assembly usable on board a bicycle, including a box for containing an electronic control unit and a container for one or more electric power-supply batteries, the said battery holder being connected to the control-unit box.
Devices of the type referred to above have already formed the subject of the previous U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/193,009 filed by the present applicant on Jul. 11 2002.
The purpose of the present invention is to improve further the assembly previously proposed by providing it with additional advantageous functions.
With a view to achieving the above purpose, the subject of the present invention is an integrated control-unit and power-supply assembly of the type indicated at the beginning of the present description, characterized in that at least one sensor device is mounted on at least one between said battery holder and said control-unit box.
In a preferred embodiment, the aforesaid sensor device is mounted on the battery holder. The aforesaid sensor device may be one of the various sensor devices that are present on modern bicycles, in particular on racing bicycles, in order to enable, for instance, display of the various parameters (speed, pedal cadence, etc.) on a display mounted on the handlebars of the bicycle. A sensor of this type is, for example, a pedal cadence sensor, which typically consists of a magnetic-activation sensor which is set on the frame of the bicycle in an area adjacent to one of the crank arms and which is activated, at each revolution of the crank arms, by a permanent magnet carried by one of the pedals in such a way as to supply one pulse per revolution to the electronic control unit mounted on board the bicycle. According to the prior art, the magnetic-activation device is fixed, as already said, on the frame of the bicycle. According to the present invention, instead, the integrated control-unit and power-supply assembly is exploited also for mounting one or more sensors, for instance a sensor of the type described above, designed to detect the pedal cadence. The above result can be obtained in a particularly advantageous way by means of the arrangement that forms the subject of the prior U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/193,009 already cited above, according to which the assembly is mounted on the frame in the area where the bottle cage is fixed, or else also according to the arrangement that forms the subject of a further co-pending patent application in the name of the present applicant, filed on the same date as the present application, according to which the assembly is mounted on the frame of the bicycle underneath the bottom-bracket shell or crank case. In both cases, the control-unit box includes a receptacle-like tubular appendage for connection to the battery holder, which preferably consists of an elongated cylindrical body. In the former case, the battery holder extends parallel to the down tube of the frame to which the bottle cage is fixed. In the latter case, the battery holder extends in a direction substantially parallel to one of the two chain stays.
Preferably, the aforesaid magnetic-activation sensor (or any other sensor) is set at one end of the cylindrical battery holder, which, in the condition of mounting on the bicycle, is adjacent to one of the crank arms.
Consequently, the invention enables a further advantage to be added to the control-unit and power-supply assembly forming the subject of the patent applications referred to above. Again according to what is proposed in the prior U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/193,009, the battery holder is preferably received, in a disconnectable way, inside the receptacle-like tubular appendage of the control-unit box. Consequently, placing of the sensor device on the battery holder makes it possible to carry out any operation on the sensor device with extreme ease and rapidity. At the same time, the sensor device can be mounted without the need to carry out a special operation, in so far as it is sufficient for this purpose to connect the batter holder to the control-unit box.